Ufouria: The Saga 2 Review (Switch)

This is, for lack of a better descriptor, charming; a rekindling of an IP and a platforming vibe not seen rendered in such authentic fashion for some time. Ufouria: The Saga 2’s simplicity is to its credit, keeping it real to the source material and the vast catalogue of action platform games that informed much of the Nintendo Entertainment System’s '80s rule.

The original Ufouria: The Saga was released for the Famicom in 1991 and on the NES in Europe in 1992. It was Sunsoft’s bid to create a band of mascots, with the intention of placing the characters in a series of games, each utilising a different genre. Sunsoft made decent headway with this plan. Those who remember the grey import scene of the '90s might remember Hebereke’s Popoon for the Super Nintendo, a Puyo Puyo-esque puzzle game that popped with cutesy characters and colourful gelatine blobs.

Sunsoft created a full series of Hebereke games that appeared on most '90s consoles, from Wonderswan to PlayStation, with only the Neo Geo instalment ultimately getting cancelled. The company's only failing was with the diversity of genres it had envisioned, with most entries being puzzle-based.

Fast forward to 2024 and Hebe’s wacky world and band of zany friends are back at it in Ufouria: The Saga 2, a title that suggests a direct sequel. In Japan it’s simply known as Hebereke 2 — ‘Hebereke’, incidentally, being a play on words that means intoxicated or dishonest.

Ufouria: The Saga 2’s visual design is that of mixed textiles, recalling the likes of Yoshi's Story on the Nintendo 64. Felt trees, paper grain skies, and perler bead text windows. It’s a fresh, pastel mix of hues, with an upbeat, childlike visual disposition: attractive without being overbearing. You begin your journey as Hebe atop your treetop home, tasked with dispatching an enemy known as Bumyon who is littering the world with a toxic purple agent. Hebe initially ventures out left to the Ufouria fields, encountering his friend O-Chan, transformed and crazed by Bumyon's purple slime. After a brief battle, O-Chan is freed and joins your team, bringing about the ability to swim.

This is the basis for how Ufouria: The Saga 2 functions. It uses an extremely light, unashamedly stripped-back Metroid-style structure, whereby areas you find inaccessible require you to find and win back friends with abilities of long jumping, diving, and so on. Once you acquire a new friend, they’re quick-swapped with a tap of the shoulder button, allowing you to cycle your toolkit on the fly. Having them join you, however, isn’t quite as straightforward as winning a battle. Hebe’s home acts as a hub on the map, and once you free one of your friends they stand by the vending machine looking for a particular item — an item that won’t become available until you accrue a certain number of special items known as Utsu-cans, dotted around the landscape.

Economy plays a large part in how much of Ufouria: The Saga 2 slots into place. There are coins everywhere, easy to sweep up as you jump, butt slam, and fling popoons — Hebe’s stun blobs — at various roaming enemies. Dispatch a boss and hitch a ride back home, and you bank those coins. The vending machines nearby boss lairs usually hold health-increasing elixirs, but the one at Hebe’s abode supplies permanent power-ups: multiple popoons, maximum life increases, the ability to crouch, and so on. Some throw out objects in key areas like bouncy springs for reaching previously out-of-reach areas, and mine carts for exciting cave traversals.

These elements all work in harmony. Adding friends to your team, powering up your base properties, and then revisiting areas to access new zones is a smooth process. And an easy one. The best way to describe Ufouria: The Saga 2 is relaxing and rarely taxing. One of the smartest aspects of its design is the way in which, upon revisiting areas with new abilities, the layouts change to become more difficult. But it remains, at best, moderate, at least until you approach the end of the game where smart character swapping and reflex skill becomes more pressing.

Being leisurely, though, isn’t a fault, but rather the intention. It might be quite a bit easier than the 1991 original — especially the tougher European version — but, thanks to clever and thoughtful assembly, remains very enjoyable to romp through. The world is bright and fun, wacky and inimitable, and text exchanges bring spirit to a band of Sunsoft friends hailing from a simpler time. The way Ufouria’s world broadens is pacy enough to stay engaging, and assembling your crew and acquiring vended trinkets and power-ups plays on that age-old, Nintendo-perfected art of consistent reward. There’s always something new just around the corner, either to be seen or had, and that’s what keeps you playing.

At the same time, its simplistic nature will be a little too threadbare for some. While augmented in many ways to appeal to modern audiences, most obviously with its vending machine catalogue, it’s still a very '90s game. You fling blobs to stun enemies that drop poop, roam around, and butt-bounce them out of existence, and that’s largely the breadth of the action. You hop from platform to platform, occasionally climbing up a sticky strand to reach a coin chest, and then pop back down to continue your journey. Bosses are far too easy and samey for the majority of the journey, and could have used more invention. Even one of the original Ufouria’s earliest bosses required you to head stomp him to have him spit a usable projectile into the play field, but here it’s just a case of flinging a popoon to temporarily dispel the purple muck, and head stomp. Repeat three times and it’s quickly over. This format doesn’t change until a while in whereby a bouncy spring is added to slightly alter the engagement.